How to overcome the urge to cheat on your partner

What you will learn from this blog:

• The urge to cheat does not come from a lack of self-control, but from deeper reasons such as unmet emotional needs
• The way to overcome the urge to cheat is not to ignore the urge but to address the underlying root causes

In our relationship counselling sessions, we are often asked what constitutes cheating. Cheating can be emotional or sexual. It happens when someone stops investing energy into building connection and intimacy with their partner, and invests that energy elsewhere.

In this definition, cheating can be:

• Watching porn to satisfy your sexual desires, instead of investing in sexual intimacy with your partner
• Engaging services to satisfy your sexual/emotional needs, instead of building a sexual/emotional connection with your partner
• Being emotionally/sexually intimate with someone else regularly, instead of working on emotional intimacy with your partner

Cheating damages relationships because:

• It breaks trust;
• There is a lack of effort put into building connections; and
• The fact that most cheating happens in secrecy creates an emotional divide between a couple, where partners are unable to share their true feelings openly with each other.

Firstly, it is important to understand that the urge to cheat or an emotional or sexual attraction to someone outside your relationship is not a bad thing in itself.

It is a SIGNAL from your body about something within you that needs attention – such as an unmet need, or an unresolved trauma.

The more we resist this urge, the stronger and more uncontrollable it will get.

Instead of giving in and allowing this urge to control our behaviour, it is important to BECOME AWARE of this urge, and examine why it is there.

In our earlier blog ‘3 Reasons Why People Cheat in Relationships’, we identified the following common root causes of cheating:

1. Unmet emotional needs
2. Sexualised Trauma
3. Fear of Commitment

We recommend reading that before reading on. In this blog, we share ways to address these 3 causes of the urge to cheat.

01. Unmet emotional needs

The urge to cheat often comes when we are in a very low state emotionally.

This is when our emotional needs are very high. These needs include connection; appreciation; feeling seen and heard; feeling understood.

If we do not get these emotional needs met in our relationship, we “starve” and are driven overwhelmingly to seek that connection elsewhere.

To overcome this, identify what your emotional needs are, and communicate them with your partner.

We understand it may be difficult to do so when your partner may be emotional as well. Communication and understanding each other’s wants and needs are the basic foundation of a healthy relationship. Seek professional help with this if needed.

It is also important not to be completely dependent on your partner to meet your emotional needs:

• Find out how to build connection and intimacy with yourself – e.g. by being present with your emotions and inner child
• Find communities, groups or trusted friends who can supplement the emotional support you get from your partner

02. Sexualised Trauma

Sexualised trauma can be very difficult to detect as many people confuse it with “falling in love” with somebody else, or having “natural sexual needs”.

Here are some differences between being sexually and emotionally attracted to someone who is subconsciously feeding your trauma, vs. real connection:

To heal sexualized trauma, the first step is to be aware of whether your attraction to someone is due to trauma or a genuine connection.

The second step is to address your resistance to your sexuality and find acceptance for it. This does not mean giving in to it. The more you feel shame, guilt and disgust towards your sexuality, the more overwhelming your trauma-driven sexual urges will become.

The third step is to identify the trauma and heal it and find ways to channel your sexual desires in a healthy way. From our experience in relationship counselling and individual therapy, it is very difficult for one to do this on their own. This is where we recommend those who struggle to seek professional help through individual therapy or couple therapy in Singapore.

03. Fear of Commitment

Some symptoms of this fear are:

• Being ambiguous about the relationship
• Feeling trapped when you get too close to someone
• Flirting with others gives you a sense of freedom and empowerment

If you are looking to heal, here are some steps we suggest:

• Mentally notice how not committing is keeping you stuck in a cycle of always needing to find something new and living a double life; look for positive reasons to commit that align with your life goals
• Emotionally be present with your fear of commitment; feel that fear in your body when it comes up; reflect on what life experiences you had that led to this fear
• Practically start committing and following through on small tasks that bring you joy (e.g. to learn a skill; or start a hobby). When you start to see the positive results of committing to something and pouring all your focus and energy into it, you start to heal your fear

Learn more about how you can work with us on couple therapy in Singapore.